Degree session tonight

Had a stimulating session tonight at college on painting. Adam, our tutor, who is a painter himself, showed 2 Dvd's on painters. I am not a painter (yet!) but got alot from listening to John Virtue and Ian Davenport talk about their practice. The discipline especially. John was particularly inspiring and so passionate about his work - I have tonight done a bit of research and found out that he puts in a 10 hour day - I suppose the fact that he was a postman starting at 3.30am helps in terms of getting started early in the morning! I personally wasn't that taken with Ian's work and was more interested in the filmic qualities. Both had something to say about abstract work in very different ways.

Affirmations for artists

Found this today and thought how much I need to be reminded of these things as sometimes it's not easy to stay positive in these gloomy economic times. Created by Alyson Stanfield.
Enjoy

I am in the process of setting up a new blog which will be all about my coaching and facilitation practice and lots about creativity as well - things like these affirmations and other resources that I find will get posted on there and this blog will remain for my art practice - so look out for my new blog - I will post the link on here

A weekend of collections

There's so much going on in Leeds at the moment I'm having to make some difficult choices! The Leeds film festival ends tomorrow and I've only managed to get to three events run by KiNETIKA yesterday. In the afternoon there was a tour of Film Lab North - Howard took 3 hours to show and tell us everything that happened to a 16mm or 35mm film once it arrived at the lab - they process films for television such as Planet Earth and also artists film, Tacita Dean's film on the lighthouse was processed there. It was fascinating and thanks to Howard and his staff for giving us so much of their time. Last night I attended KiNETIKA's two programmes of short 16mm and Super 8mm films at the Adelphi. The first 'Subtle Bodies' was not well attended which was a shame as it showed a range of beautifully made collective films. The second showing at 8.30pm was really well attended and presented a range of films made by students in the ExP 24 workshops. It is good to see so many young people still interested in the cellular film movement today but I wonder if it isn't just a bit of a fad that will soon give way to the more lucritive digital industry in their later years. The main question is will film survive? I really hope so!
Today I chose to go to one of the ESA Multitude events the 'You're never alone when you collect' tour - wow was it worth it! I also have one of my photograms in the 'Salon' exhibition - it's on next week Thurs - Sunday and is well worth a trip to Patrick Studios to see the exhibition.
A mini bus took us to the homes of Lynette Willoughby, Mick and Gill and Benedict Phillips to look at their wonderful eclectic collections.
We even had cocktails at Mick and Gill's home, served from a genuine 50's bar (complete with a collection of cocktail sticks)followed by coffee with amaretto and chocolate biscuits at Benedict's. What wonderfully inspiring and different collections they were. Thank you so much for inviting us into your homes and sharing your passions. My only critic of the tour was that it was not long enough - there was so much to see and talk about it could have been a day rather than a couple of hours - so next time more more more..... The collecting obsession is something that lots of us can relate to - not just artists!
The photos are of Lynette's way of displaying her collection of paperwork, a small part of Lynette's collection (there is literally a house full of amazing stuff) and Gill's collection of pens from around the world

T